It is very normal to call your loved ones ‘sugar’, but I am sure, a time will come when the term will be as repugnant and undesirable as what that very object does to your body.  Yes, refined sugar is a deadly poison, which robs you of some of your physical and mental abilities, dries up your zest and enthusiasm by making you lethargic, turn you into a despicable bundle of lard and fat and torment your entire body with diseases such as diabetes before eventually killing you. 

Most people are aware that sugar is not good for them; yet treat themselves to a good helping of it, in the form of chocolates or biscuits or bakery food or ice cream.  It is addictive and the only good thing you can say about it is that it tastes sweet.   There are also many forms of refined sugar which are not so sweet but equally addictive; the most infamous of them being alcohol.   The government or the health department which bans advertisements of cigarettes and liquor should take a closer look at the myriad ways refined sugar can be harmful to the body and insist on a warning on any food product that contains refined sugar.

I shall now proceed to mention why refined sugar is dangerous to your health.   Let’s start from where it all begins - the ingestion of sugar into your body.  Refined sugar quickly increases the blood sugar levels, causing your pancreas to send insulin to bring the sugar level to normal.   Insulin does so by pushing sugar into your cells, to be used as energy, but when more and more sugar enters your blood stream, more insulin is produced, which results in too much sugar being removed from your blood.  This condition is called hypoglycaemia, which eventually exhausts your pancreas, liver and adrenal glands, as they have to work harder to keep your sugar levels in correct balance.   Sooner or later, this leads to diabetes and a host of other problems associated with it.

One of the major causes of obesity has been linked to eating refined sugar.  Excess dose of sugar always gets deposited in the fat cells.  Over a period of time, coupled with an inactive life style, the body starts to suffer from insulin insensitivity, which makes even the smallest amount of sugar to be pushed into fat cells.  This is one of the reasons why most people complain of getting fatter even though they do not overeat or over indulge in their favourite refined sugar or sweets. 

Refined sugar also uses up your B- vitamins stores for digestion, in addition to calcium and magnesium.   Lack of B- vitamins can be stressful on your nervous system and you may start to suffer from fatigue, anxiety, and depression and tend to feel lethargic.  Being low on calcium and magnesium can lead to arthritis and osteoporosis. 

Now, here is something all women should worry about.  It has been observed that women tend more to have a sweet tooth than men and more prone to this terrible side effect of refined sugar consumption.    Glucose in your blood attaches to protein, causing rogue molecules called AGE [Advance Glycation End products].  The more sugar you eat, the more AGE you have and they tend to damage protein, especially the collagen and elastin fibres that keep your skin elastic and taut.  The skin loses its elasticity and wrinkles are formed which are not reversible.   Moreover, AGE also affects your antioxidant enzymes to reduce antioxidant levels and that, my friends, is a lot of damage.

Your body needs a high dose of vitamin C to build up defence against diseases.  Unfortunately, the glucose molecule, which is almost similar in structure, prevents the entry of vitamin C into the cells and needless to say, badly affects your immune system.